Traditional eyeglasses have two positions: A folded position and an extended position. FIGS. 1 and 2 show the former and FIG. 3 shows the later. The folded position is for eyeglass transportation and storage. In the extended position, the eyeglass arm earpiece loops over and behind the wearer's ear, securing the glasses to the wearer's face. This is so convenient that the design is little-changed from its early 1700s introduction by Edward Scarlett and James Ayscough, who invented eyeglass arms and their foldability respectively in 1730 and 1752.
The traditional eyeglass advantage is not only that it holds the lenses in front of the eyes while the wearer's hands are free, but it also holds the lenses in a plane in front of the wearer's eyes, allowing a user to move their eyes and retain the same optical advantage through the lenses.
One of the problems with early eyeglass designs is that as people age, they become more far-sighted and may thus lose both their ability to see near and far. Such a challenge presented a challenge to early eyeglass manufacturers, who could only produce one appropriate lens to help their wearers. As is widely known, America's famous polymath Benjamin Franklin solved this problem with his invention of the bifocals in the mid to late 1700s.
In roughly the same time period, George Adams invented the lorgnette spectacle that had no arms but instead included a handle that allowed the user to place the corrective lenses in front of their eyes in use and remove them when not. These types of glasses proved popular in theater settings and masquerades.
Each of these inventions, the traditional, the bifocal, and the lorgnette eyeglasses share certain challenges that no single eyeglass addresses. The traditional eyeglass works well but in situations where a user's ears are not accessible (during hair dying, hair drying, surgery, etc.), a person does not want to give up their ability to see and read. The bifocal (and today's progressive lenses) solve the challenge of those who want to see both near and far, but a person who wants to look over their glasses must allow the glasses to slide down their nose to look over them, in a stereotypically “disapproving teacher” pose. This way of wearing glasses down-the-nose makes them prone to falling off. Finally, the lorgnette, while stylish and functional in the hair salon, has a valuable functionality but people only call upon in certain circumstances.
Thus, there is a need for a stylish yet functional eyeglass design that solves some or all of the above challenges.